


I know you love to fall

by midmorning_bomb



Series: Little glimpse [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adult Stiles Stilinski, Artist Stiles Stilinski, Leaving Beacon Hills, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27499933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midmorning_bomb/pseuds/midmorning_bomb
Summary: A ghost of a smirk passes over Stiles’ face and Peter feels his throat tighten. God, he’s missed that shit-eating grin. He knows exactly the last time he saw it: while the two of them were bleeding out from their wounds in a clearing in the preserve, believing help was on its way.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Little glimpse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892233
Comments: 17
Kudos: 238





	I know you love to fall

The days leading up to rain are always the worst. Stiles will joke that weather prediction is not the super power it’s cracked up to be, as he grimaces through the pain.

And Peter knows his pride stops him from asking for Peter to drain the aches, so they spend those days together on their worn leather sofa, Peter’s hand slipping surreptitiously under the edge of Stiles’ hoodie. When Stiles starts to doze, Peter will go to the kitchen and make kopytka with bacon or mountains of gołąbki. No matter how much he practices, the cabbage rolls are always a little bit of a mess, but never fail to make Stiles smile.

Those smiles are precious to Peter. Sometimes at night, when he holds onto Stiles like a lifeline, he thinks about how hard won and rare they were before. He has to stop himself, dwelling on the build up to them leaving Beacon Hills, lest he choke on the rage he feels even months later. He’ll press his palm against Stiles’ chest, reassuring himself of the ever beating heart below.

Stiles is sleeping in late, like he does on days that start out grey. The pain in his leg should be subsiding now that the rain has started, and Peter has a perfect day planned to lift Stiles’ mood.

When they left Beacon Hills, they packed the essentials and started driving. No destination in mind, no timeline, no responsibilities. They drove until they hit the Canadian border, kept driving. Saw mountains, prairies, and forests, until they found themselves driving through an escarpment and finally feeling at home.

Peter used to be so hungry, burning ambition eating away inside of him all the time. Now his best days include a drive to the old fashioned candy shop/tourist trap an hour or so from South River, stopping at their favourite Mediterranean restaurant on the way back home. He can’t help barking out a laugh as he adds a stop at the craft collective to his itinerary for the day.

He is still delighted and endlessly amused that Stiles’ competence kink extends to Peter’s love of, and talent with, a pair of knitting needles. It’s much easier to relax into projects here, in their lakefront cottage, than it was surrounded by a quasi-pack of idiots. He very rarely fantasizes about stabbing anyone with his bamboo needles these days.

(These days he builds every comfort into the den he and Stiles share. He builds the foundations of their little pack so solid nothing will ever break it apart. No one will ever take Stiles from him again.)

The drive is silent, peaceful. They’re on the cusp of winter, the trees near bare, the sky cold and blue. Peter wonders how Stiles will adjust to a Canadian winter, he’ll have to work to keep his mate warm.

He listens to Stiles’ quiet breathing as the younger man watches the passing landscape. Peter sees his fingers twitch as they drive by a particularly breathtaking outcropping of coral-coloured rock. “Your sketchbook is in the back, darling.”

A ghost of a smirk passes over Stiles’ face and Peter feels his throat tighten. God, he’s missed that shit-eating grin. He knows exactly the last time he saw it: while the two of them were bleeding out from their wounds in a clearing in the preserve, believing help was on its way.

He watched it die on Stiles’ face, when Scott refused to trade the werehyena he was sheltering from the clan she’d betrayed for the two of them.

Peter had been testing the waters with Stiles for a while then, the two of them leaving Beacon Hills. Little jokes, interjections. Quiet asides during pack meetings gone astray. Before Stiles came to him one day, full of nervous energy.

There was always one last thing. Deaton needing help with wards, the pack needing research. Hale blood (surely true alpha blood would have been just as vital as Peter’s then near-omega plasma) for rituals. Until one day, Scott showed up, enamoured with yet another stray, and everything went straight to hell.

The soft scratch of pencil against paper is as soothing as the rain. When Peter glances over, there’s a light blush rising on Stiles’ cheeks. He looks again, down at the sketchbook, and notes the familiar lines of the jaw and nose in the drawing.

“Shut up, I can feel your ego inflating.”

Peter doesn’t even bother holding back a smug expression, “I do need to sustain it somehow.”

Stiles absently rubs a hand across his thigh, where Peter knows a jagged scar curls and caresses from the inner edge of his knee up to the hip bone. He pulls them over to one of the scenic rest areas, to let Stiles finish his sketch, to lay his hand on Stiles’ neck and pull the pain. Peter’s fingers trace along the hairline, and he can’t help but lean in and breathe deeply.

He places a soft kiss to Stiles’ shoulder and watches the rivulets of raindrops on the windshield. They patter down, and run together. In the distance, the last of the fall leaves drop from a black cherry tree, settling on the rough water below. This gentle storm won’t clear today.

_“Would you really leave here? If I asked you to come with me?” Stiles doesn’t look at Peter as he asks, the fidgeting with his messenger bag warring with projected confidence._

_“Sweetheart, I’d go anywhere with you, just say the word.”_

_There’s heartbreak on Stiles’ face, giving way to just a little hope._

_“I’m saying it, Peter. Let’s go.”_

**Author's Note:**

> [I know you love to fall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjXaddTMecc).
> 
> America, I am so worried about you guys and this is the result of my stress-writing. I would have written some satire, but after the Four Seasons Total Landscaping thing, I'm pretty sure it's officially dead.


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